"You're quicker than you think, you're faster than you think. We're intensives. When we really do get focused, we really do move fast...."

Finding that focus sometimes depends on choosing a single, solvable problem, one step at a time. And we can do that. Really.

Transcript and notes:

https://dev.intensivesinstitute.com/captivate-podcast/faster-to-pleasure

Recorded 9 October 2023.

"Can I tell you something? Use the tools. Use the tools you have. Use them all the way...."

We'll start with the dishwasher- but you know this isn't just about the dishwasher. This is about committing ourselves to really use the tools that we have learned can help us, and to using them fully. For our own good, and for the good of those around us.

Transcript and show notes:

https://dev.intensivesinstitute.com/captivate-podcast/dishwasher

Recorded 27 September 2023.

"It's a hard thing for us as intensives, to let go of our original vision. And sometimes we get stuck."

What do we do when we have to shift from plan A to plan B or even to plan Q? What do we do when we have to pick the tomatoes early?

Transcript and notes:

https://dev.intensivesinstitute.com/captivate-podcast/picking-early

Recorded 25 September 2023.

Samara Bay: "When we tell a story about a tiny moment, and how it impacted us, it is actually the most revealing thing of our character we could possibly do. Where we come from does not win over what we did in a hard moment."

Meet Samara Bay, who coaches rising business leaders, political hopefuls, and public figures who need to speak in a voice they recognize as their own to truly make waves. She is the author of Permission to Speak, a "game-changing guide to redefining what power and authority sound like." Join Samara and Leela Sinha as they laugh, cry, and share stories in this special interview episode of Power Pivot.

"it's a decolonizing act, and it is a queering act, to start to question the ways that we have normalized and normied ourselves: for safety, for proximal power; and to love on those instincts of ours to get by, while also getting curious about what else is possible." -Samara Bay

Permission to Speak is available in hardcover, ebook, or audiobook (read by the author) from Penguin Random House.

For a free warm-up and Samara's newsletter, head to https://www.samarabay.com/goodies

Or, check out Samara Bay on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samarabay

Full transcript and show notes can be found here:

https://dev.intensivesinstitute.com/episode/samara-bay

Recorded 23 October 2023.

"Forcing ourselves, as intensives, to take time and energy and focus never goes well. Expansives call that discipline, but we call that torture. Don't torture yourself."

On the virtues and challenges of taking one's time- and how feeling in flow and getting things just right, sometimes doesn't feel like taking any time at all.

Mr. Rogers singing "I Like to Take My Time."

https://youtu.be/z0gtqPURoiM?si=lY6djnwod16-zq_j

Transcript and notes:

https://dev.intensivesinstitute.com/captivate-podcast/burnout

Recorded 25 September 2023.

"You can do a lot things with ash, but what you can't do is get more heat out of ash. Because all of the heat, all of the calories stored, have been released. Often we get to dive into a project and work on it really hard. But then we need comp time. We need the break. If we don't take the break every day, we need to take the break in chunks. And our system is not set up to allow us to do that."

Burnout is not natural. It is a natural reaction to unnatural demands. And the demands are getting worse. How to create space to recover from burnout; and how do we create a world that prevents it?

note: the Intensives Institute Salon mentioned in this episode was originally scheduled for September 13, 2023 but was moved to September 20th, 2023.

Transcript and notes:

https://dev.intensivesinstitute.com/captivate-podcast/burnout

Recorded 11 September 2023.

"There was one seed that just got it into its head that it was going to take over the world. And it did."

Growing things that will thrive in the conditions that exist; and also, creating the conditions that allows us to thrive and grow. Sometimes in unexpected places.

Transcript and notes:

https://dev.intensivesinstitute.com/captivate-podcast/tomatoes-I-didnt-plant

Recorded 11 September 2023.

"If you have complicated grain, if you're complicated, you need extremely sharp tools and extremely skilled craftspeople.... You need to understand the sharpening as a part of the process, not an interruption of the process."

CN: contains some discussion of the events of September 11, 2001 in the first 65 seconds of the episode.

On the humble cabinet scraper, American identity, reaching for excellence, being deeply intimate with the sharpness of the tools we use, and directing our work towards compassion and away from fear.

Transcript and notes:

https://dev.intensivesinstitute.com/captivate-podcast/intimate-with-sharpness

For more on Garrett Hack, furniture maker:

http://www.garretthack.com/

Recorded 11 September 2023.

"Here's what I want to give you. I want to give you the low slant of light as fall creeps in. I want to give you a double handful of freshly picked raspberries too soft to do anything but eat immediately. I want to give you the persistent, ridiculous abundance of dandelions. I want to give you fresh strawberries in August, and other small miracles...."

A poem for the sunset of summer and the dawn of autumn.

Transcript and notes:

https://dev.intensivesinstitute.com/captivate-podcast/gifts

Recorded 24 August 2023.

"When it comes time for us to harvest, when the air and the sun and the water and the sky all shift in the direction of fall- it is also time to turn toward rest."

Harvest can bring a sense of certainty- "here is what I have, this is what I don't. Now I can prepare for what will come. Here's what I can share with my community, and here is what I must ask my community to share with me." And hopefully, along with that certainty, can come a sense of peace and rest. And perhaps joy.

Transcript and notes:

https://dev.intensivesinstitute.com/captivate-podcast/the-harvest

Recorded 24 August 2023.